The Project Gutenberg EBook of The History of the American Expedition
Fighting the Bolsheviki, by Joel R. Moore and Harry H. Mead and Lewis E. Jahns

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Title: The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki
       Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919

Author: Joel R. Moore
        Harry H. Mead
        Lewis E. Jahns

Release Date: September 5, 2007 [EBook #22523]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI ***




Produced by Don Kostuch

The following map was provide by Mike Grobbel (http://grobbel.org) who
photographed it from the Frederick C. O'Dell Map Collection, Folder
Number 9, Map Number 1, Bentley Historical Library, University of
Michigan. Mr. Grobbel is the grandson of  "CORP. C. A. GROBBELL, "I"
Co." mentioned on page 284 as a recipient of the French Croix de Guerre.
The correct spelling is "Grobbel".

Corp. Grobbel received the Distinguished Service Cross, not mentioned in
this book.



[End of Transcriber's notes]

Hundreds of Miles Through Solid Forests of Pine and Spruce.



The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki

Campaigning in North Russia

1918-1919

Compiled and Edited by

CAPT. JOEL R. MOORE, 339th U. S. Infantry
LIEUT. HARRY H. MEAD, 339th U. S. Infantry
LIEUT. LEWIS E. JAHNS, 339th U. S. Infantry

Published by

The Polar Bear Publishing Co.
Detroit, Mich.

COPYRIGHT 1920
BY
JOEL R. MOORE


PRESS OF
TOPPING-SANDERS COMPANY
DETROIT


To the men who in North Russia
died in battle and of wounds, or
of sickness due directly to hardship
and exposure, this book is
reverently dedicated.



To Our Comrades and Friends

To our comrades and friends we address these prefatory words. The book
is about to go to the printers and binders. Constantly while writing the
historical account of the American expedition, which fought the
Bolsheviki in North Russia, we have had our comrades in mind. You are
the ones most interested in getting a complete historical account. It is
a wonderful story of your own fighting and hardships, of your own
fortitude and valor. It is a story that will make the eyes of the home
folks shine with pride.

Probably you never could have known how remarkably good is the record of
your outfits in that strange campaign if you had not commissioned three
of your comrades to write the book for you. In the national army, we
happened to be officers; in civil life we are respectively, college
professor, lawyer, and public accountant, in the order in which our
names appear on the title page. But we prefer to come to you now with
the finished product merely as comrades who request you to take the book
at its actual value to you--a faithful description of our part in the
great world war. We are proud of the record the Americans made in the
expedition.

We think that nothing of importance has been omitted. Some sources of
information were not open to us--will be to no one for years. But from
some copies of official reports, from company and individual diaries,
and from special contributions written for us, we have been able to
write a complete narrative of the expedition. In all cases except a few
where the modesty of the writer impelled him to ask us not to mention
his name, we have referred to individuals who have contributed to the
book. To these contributors all, we here make acknowledgment of our debt
to them for their cordial co-operation. For the wealth of
photo-engravures which the book carries, we have given acknowledgment
along with each individual engraving, for furnishing us with the
photographic views of the war scenes and folk scenes of North Russia.
Most of them are, of course, from the official United States Signal
Corps war pictures.

When we started the book, we had no idea that it would develop into the
big book it is, a de luxe edition, of fine materials and fine
workmanship. We have not been able to risk a large edition. Only two
thousand copies are being printed. They are made especially for the boys
who were up there under the Arctic Circle, made as nice as we could get
them made. Of many of the comrades we have lost track, but we trust that
somehow they will hear of this book and become one of the proud
possessors of a copy. To our comrades and friends, we offer this volume
with the expectation that you will be pleased with it and that after you
have read it, you will glow with pride when you pass it over to a
relative or friend to read.

Detroit, Michigan,
September, 1920
JOEL R. MOORE
HARRY H. MEAD
LEWIS E. JAHNS

I

U. S. A. MEDICAL UNITS ON THE ARCTIC OCEAN

Someone Blunders About Medicine Stores--Spanish Influenza At Sea And No
Medicine--Improvised Hospitals At Time Of Landing--Getting Results In
Spite Of Red Tape--Raising Stars And Stripes To Hold The Hospital--Aid
Of American Red Cross--Doughboys Dislike British Hospital--Starting
American Receiving Hospital--Blessings On The Medical Men.


At Stoney Castle camp in England, inquiry by the Americans had elicited
statement from the British authorities that each ship would be well
supplied with medicines and hospital equipment for the long voyage into
the frigid Arctic. But it happened that none were put on the boat and
all that the medical officers had to use were three or four boxes of
medical supplies that they had clung to all the way from Camp Custer.

Before half the perilous and tedious voyage was completed, the dreaded
Spanish influenza broke out on three of the ships. On the "Somali,"
which is typical of the three ships, every available bed was full on the
fifth day out at sea. Congestion was so bad that men with a temperature
of only 101 or 102 degrees were not put into the hospital but lay in
their hammocks or on the decks. To make matters worse, on the eighth day
out all the "flu" medicines were exhausted.

It was a frantic medical detachment that paced the decks of those three
ships for two days and nights after the ships arrived in the harbor of
Archangel while preparations were being made for the improvisation of
hospitals.

On the 6th of September they debarked in the rain at Bakaritza. About
thirty men could be accommodated in the old Russian Red Cross Hospital,
such as it was, dirt and all. The remainder were temporarily put into
old barracks. What "flu"-weakened soldier will ever forget those double
decked pine board beds, sans mattress, sans linen, sans pillows? If
lucky, a man had two blankets. He could not take off his clothes. Death
stalked gauntly through and many a man died with his boots on in bed.
The glory of dying in France to lie under a field of poppies had come to
this drear mystery of dying in Russia under a dread disease in a strange
and unlovely place. Nearly a hundred of them died and the wonder is that
more men did not die. What stamina and courage the American soldier
showed, to recover in those first dreadful weeks!

No attempt is made to fasten blame for this upon the American medical
officers, nor upon the British for that matter. Many a soldier, though,
was wont to wish that Major Longley had not himself been nearly dead of
the disease when the ships arrived. To the credit of Adjutant Kiley,
Captains Hall, Kinyon, Martin and Greenleaf and Lieutenants Lowenstein
and Danzinger and the enlisted medical men, let it be said that they
performed prodigies of labor trying to serve the sick men who were
crowded into the five hastily improvised hospitals.

The big American Red Cross Hospital, receiving hospital at the base, was
started at Archangel November 22nd by Captain Pyle under orders of Major
Longley. The latter had been striving for quite a while to start a
separate receiving hospital for American wounded, but had been blocked
by the British medical authorities in Archangel. They declared that it
was not feasible as the Americans had no equipment, supplies or medical
personnel.

However, the officer in charge of the American Red Cross force in
Archangel offered to supply the needed things, either by purchasing them
from the stores of British medical supplies in Archangel or by sending
back to England for them. It is said that the repeated letters of Major
Longley to SOS in England somehow were always tangled in the British and
American red tape, in going through military channels.

At last Major Longley took the bull by the horns and accepted the aid of
the Red Cross and selected and trained a personnel to run the hospital
from among the officers and men who had been wounded and were recovered
or partially recovered and were not fit for further heavy duty on the
fighting line. He had the valuable assistance also of the two American
Red Cross nurses, Miss Foerster and Miss Gosling, the former later being
one of five American women who, for services in the World War, were
awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal.

On September 10th, we opened the first Red Cross Hospital which was also
used in connection with the Russian Red Cross Hospital and was served by
Russian Red Cross nurses. Captain Hall and Lieutenant Kiley were in
charge of the hospital.

A few days later an infirmary was opened for the machine gunners and
Company "C" of the engineers at Solombola.

A good story goes in connection with this piece of history of the little
Red Cross hospital on Troitsky near Olga barracks. There had been rumor
and more or less open declaration of the British medical authorities
that the Americans would not be permitted to start a hospital of their
own in Archangel. The Russian sisters who owned the building were
interested observers as to the outcome of this clash in authority. It
was settled one morning about ten o'clock in a spectacular manner much
to the satisfaction of the Americans and Russians. Captain Wynn of the
American Red Cross came to the assistance of Captain Hall, supplying the
American flag and helping raise it over the building and dared the
British to take it down. Then he supplied the hospital with beds and
linen and other supplies and comfort bags for the men, dishes, etc. This
little hospital is a haven of rest that appears in the dreams today of
many a doughboy who went through those dismal days of the first month in
Archangel. There they got American treatment and as far as possible food
cooked in American style.

In October the number of sick and wounded men was so large that another
hospital for the exclusive use of convalescents was opened in an old
Russian sailor's home in the near vicinity of American Headquarters.



RED CROSS PHOTO
Surgical Operation American Receiving Hospital, Archangel, 1918.


U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
Old Glory Protects Our Hospital.


U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
Used as 53rd Stationary Hospital.

U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
After 17-Hour March in Forest.


U.S. Official Photo
Loading a Drosky at Obozerskaya


U.S. Official Photo
Wireless operators--Signal Platoon


During this controversy with the British medical authorities, the head
American medical officer was always handicapped, as indeed was many a
fighting line officer, by the fact that the British medical officer
outranked him. Let it be understood right here that many a British
officer was decorated with insignia of high rank but drew pay of low
rank. It was actually done over and over again to give the British
officer ranking authority over the American officers.

What American doughboy who ever went through the old 53rd Stationary
hospital will ever forget his homesickness and feeling of outrage at the
treatment by the perhaps well-meaning but nevertheless callous and
coarse British personnel. Think of tea, jam and bread for sick and
wounded men. An American medical sergeant who has often eaten with the
British sergeants at that hospital, Sergeant Glenn Winslow, who made out
the medical record for every wounded and sick man of the Americans who
went through the various hospitals at Archangel, and who was frequently
present at the British sergeant's mess at the hospital, relates that
there were plenty of fine foods and delicacies and drink for the
sergeant's messes, corroborated by Mess Sgt. Vincent of. "F" Company.
And a similar story was told by an American medical officer who was
invalided home in charge of over fifty wounded Americans. He had often
heard that the comforts and delicacies among the British hospital
supplies went to the British officers' messes. Captain Pyle was in
command on the icebreaker "Canada" and saw to it that the limited supply
of delicacies went to the wounded men most in need of it. There were
several British officers on the icebreaker enroute to Murmansk who set
up a pitiful cry that they had seen none of the extras to which they
were accustomed, thinking doubtless that the American officer was
holding back on them. Captain Pyle on the big ship out of Murmansk took
occasion to request of the British skipper that the American wounded on
board the ship be given more food and more palatable food. He was asked
if he expected more for the doughboy than was given to the Tommie. The
American officer's reply was characteristic of the difference between
the attitude of British and American officers toward the enlisted man:

"No, sir, it is not a question of different treatment as between Tommie
and doughboy. It is difference in the feeding of the wounded and sick
American officers and the feeding of wounded and sick American enlisted
men. My government makes no such great difference. I demand that my
American wounded men be fed more like the way in which the officers on
this ship are fed."

Lest we forget, this same medical officer in charge at one time of a
temporary hospital at a key point in the field, was over-ranked and put
under a British medical officer who brought about the American officer's
recall to the base because he refused to put the limited American
medical personnel of enlisted men to digging latrines for the British
officers' quarters.

Many a man discharged from the British 53rd Stationary Hospital as fit
for duty, was examined by American medical officers and put either into
our own Red Cross Hospital or into the American Convalescent Hospital
for proper treatment and nourishment back to fighting condition. It was
openly charged by the Americans that several Americans in the British
hospital were neglected till they were bedsore and their lives
endangered. Sick and wounded men were required to do orderly work. When
a sturdy American corporal refused to do work or to supervise work of
that nature in the hospital, he was court-martialed by order of the
American colonel commanding the American forces in North Russia. Of
course it must needs be said that there were many fine men among the
British medical officers and enlisted personnel. But what they did to
serve the American doughboys was overborne by the mistreatment of the
others.

Finally no more wounded Americans were sent to the British hospital and
no sick except those sick under G. O. 45. These latter found themselves
cooped up in an old Russian prison, partially cleaned up for a hospital
ward. This was a real chamber of horrors to many an unfortunate soldier
who was buffetted from hospital to Major Young's summary court to
hospital or back to the guardhouse, all the while worrying about the
ineffectiveness of his treatment.

So the American soldiers at last got their own receiving hospital and
their own convalescent hospital. Of course at the fighting fronts they
were nearly always in the hands of their own American medical officers
and enlisted men. The bright story of the Convalescent Hospital appears
in another place. This receiving hospital was a fine old building which
one time had been a meteorological institute, a Russian imperial
educational institution. Its great stone exterior had gathered a
venerable look in its two hundred years. The Americans were to give its
interior a sanitary improvement by way of a set of modern plumbing. But
the thing that pleased the wounded doughboy most was to find himself,
when in dreadful need of the probe or knife, under the familiar and
understanding and sympathetic eyes of Majors Henry or Longley or some
other American officer, to find his wants answered by an enlisted man
who knew the slang of Broadway and Hamtramck and the small town slang of
"back home in Michigan, down on the farm," and to find his food cooked
and served as near as possible like it was "back home" to a sick man.
Blessings on the medical men!